How much is AMD Radeon R7 200 Series. AMD RADEON R7 and R9 - Updated Line Camera

10 mar. 2016.

On this page below there are links to download the latest free drivers for AMD Video Card From the Radeon R7 200 Series series, which is included in the Radeon R7 Series Family. Files for installation are taken from the official site and are suitable for: Windows 7, 10, 8, 8.1, XP, Vista 32/64-bit (x86 / x64).

For ease of selection of the desired files, the version of your Windows and its discharge ("Bitness") is indicated below.

Your computer works on:

Download (153.5 MB / version 16.8.2 (CRIMSON EDITION 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 12.08.2016)
For Windows 7 32-bit
Download (239.8 MB / version 16.8.2 (Crimson Edition 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 08/12/2016)
For Windows 7 64-bit
Download (134.8 MB / version 16.8.2 (CRIMSON EDITION 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 08/12/2016)
For Windows 10 32-bit
Download (208.24 MB / version 16.8.2 (CRIMSON EDITION 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 08/12/2016)
For Windows 10 64-bit
Download (205 MB / version 14.4 (Catalyst Software Suite) / release date 25.04.2014)
For Windows 8 32-bit
Download (260 MB / version 14.4 (Catalyst Software Suite) / release date 25.04.2014)
For Windows 8 64-bit
Download (154.21 MB / version 16.8.2 (CRIMSON EDITION 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 12.08.2016)
For Windows 8.1 32-bit
Download (239.88 MB / version 16.8.2 (CRIMSON EDITION 16.8.2 HOTFIX) / release date 08/12/2016)
For Windows 8.1 64-bit
Download (179 MB / version 14.4 (Catalyst Software Suite) / release date 04/25/2014)
For Windows XP 32 and 64-bit
Download (151 MB / version 13.12 (Catalyst Software Suite) / release date 12/18/2013)
For Windows Vista. 32-bit.
Download (209 MB / version 13.12 (Catalyst Software Suite) / release date 12/18/2013)
For Windows Vista 64-bit

Spare option - Get drivers using the AMD Driver Autodetect program

This option convenient because the program AMD DRIVER AUTODETECT will select and download the latest workers driversthat are suitable for your AMD video card and under your windows version. The program does not need to be installed, created by AMD and downloading files from them. official servers.

Instruction:

Run AMD Driver Autodetect and it will automatically pick up immediately files To install drivers.
To download files, click on the "Download Now" button.
Wait for downloads and start the installation.

For many months, the AMD - Radeon HD 7000 video cards have passed since the release of the current generation. The first model of this line, Radeon HD 7970, was announced almost two years ago! Since then, the updated version of the GHz Edition with elevated clock frequency, as well as two-dimensional Radeon HD 7990 and many models in other price categories, but full upgrade The line we waited only today. True, the update turned out to be somewhat strange ... But we will not get ahead.

For almost two years, AMD can fully be considered successful. All video cards of this generation (Radeon HD 7900, HD 7800, HD 7700) were sold well, and Never Settle and Never Settle Forever programs, which assumed the issuance of free coupons for the purchase of several popular games to buyers of AMD video cards, were very successful, and increased even more Sales of video card companies.

AMD develops its approach to the conquest of the markets, expands its strategy. So, the company further invaded the field gaming consoles (What we still talk about something else), it doesn't just offer video cards, but seriously develops such directions as cloud computing, and helps video game manufacturers and other 3D applications when developing content.

All this has certain consequences and to some extent changes the gaming market. Thus, the introduction of own solutions (and CPU, and GPUs) into all the next generation gaming consoles, which are about to enter the market, has several consequences. For example, even purely theoretically, the development of multiplatform games should be seriously simplified, and rapprochement of consoles and PCs on hardware capabilities (and functionally and performance) will give such an expected improvement in the quality of graphics and will further strengthen the game PC market.

That is what: not only AMD and NVIDIA consider the playing PC market with flowering and smelling. Many game developers, publishers and analysts in vainly assure that PC games are more alive and this market is only grows. Moreover, if you look at the chart above, the expectations of analysts are as follows that already in 2013 the PK-Games market will surpass a console, and in subsequent years, even though he will slightly yield due to the release of the new generation consoles, but even in such conditions will be quite comparable to them .

What does this mean for AMD and their competitors? What PC players will buy new games and update their systems, since the requirements of future multiplatform projects will seriously increase. After all, the consoles of the new generation are significantly increasing compared to previous models. They have relatively powerful CPUs and GPUs, the amount of their memory increased 16 times, and they are comparaised not with the top-level PC solutions, but with the systems of the upper-average price range. And taking into account the fact that on the consoles from the "iron" squeeze traditionally more than on the PC, it can be assumed that new games will significantly raise the system of system requirements.

Especially since the PC always goes ahead of the consoles, in particular the support of information display devices high resolution. Thus, on the market there are already sold displays with the resolution of Ultra HD ("4K"), which require four more power from the graphics processors compared to the Full HD distributed systems. And although so far such monitors are very rare, their attack on the market is expected quite soon, and the decline in prices should serve them good service. Gradually comes a new era of PC games, with the effect of the resolution of Ultra HD and the new generation consoles, when many video cards in player systems will need an upgrade.

That is why AMD announced a new generation of its Radeon video cards today. More precisely, it now contains several series: Series R9 and R7 (in the future the budget series R5 is expected, but for players it is simply uninteresting, as it acts, rather, on the APU field). A dual new company line contains the following models that cover most market segments:

Thus, the video card models R7 250 and R7 260X are designed for the price range of $ 90- $ 140 (prices in the US market), R9 270x will be sold for $ 200, and R9 250x for $ 300. Unfortunately, detailed information about the flagship of the line - the model R9 290X - today will not be, the announcement of this model will take place separately.

But it is already known that the company is invited to buy an exclusive edition AMD Radeon. R9 290X Battlefield 4 Edition. By title it is clear that the kit with this video card will include the same game, which comes out this month. This publication will be released by limited edition, and in the kit of other video cards the game Battlefield 4 will not be included, so the kit is really unique.

Material about video cards from the AMD Radeon R9 290 series will be released later, in the meantime we can tell about this line the fact that it will be based on a completely new graphics processor under the code name Hawaii (the topical chip of the current generation has a code name Tahiti), highly energy efficient, based On the improved Graphics Core Next architecture and has the support of the latest version of the Graphic API DirectX 11.2.

The new Top Video Card of the R9 series will have peak mathematical capacity of more than 5 Teraflops, more than 300 GB / s bandwidth Video memory, it is capable of processing more than 4 billion polygons per second. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Hawaii chip is much more complicated than Tahiti and consists of more than 6 billion transistors. Exact figures you will learn quite soon, but for now let's look at all other models of the updated line of AMD video cards.

Since new RADEON R7 and R9 solutions are largely repeated features of the previous Radeon HD 7000 series, then before reading this material it will be useful to familiarize yourself with detailed information on AMD's early solutions:

AMD Radeon HD 7870: A mid-level solution in 3D graphics on GCN architecture
AMD Radeon HD 7770/7750: New Architecture Entering Mainstream
AMD Radeon HD 7970: new single-processor leader 3D graphics

We turn to the description of the technical characteristics of the announced video cards of the new family.

AMD RADEON R7 and R9 family cards

Let's look at all the news of AMD more. To begin with - a couple of words about new system Names. In our opinion, it is imperfect, although it looks like something that has long been applied in APU (A8 and A10 families, for example), and other manufacturers (for example, Core i5 and i7). And yet, for video cards previous System The items were clearer, and it's amazing that AMD decided to change it now, although in the reserve they had at least a line of Radeon HD 9000. Yes, and the prefix "HD" could be simply changed to something else (yes, at least "UHD" - From Ultra HD!). It also remains incomprehensible and division into families R7 and R9: why 260x belongs to the family R7, and 270x already refers to R9?

But we will leave a dispute about the names - after all, they do not affect anything, in contrast to the technical characteristics that we now consider. On the one hand, this section of the article is the most important: it will be given specifications And there is a preliminary assessment of the performance of new solutions. On the other hand, it turned out that completely new solutions in the R7 and R9 rules are only two - R9 290 and R9 290x, and we are not ready to talk about them yet.

How did it happen that there are almost no new solutions among all these video cards? The fact is that although these models are nominally and new, but almost all of them are based on the same graphic processors known to us on the previous line of Radeon HD 7000. For example, even when a quick look at the technical characteristics of the RADEON R9 280x becomes clear, What is a slightly modified Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: It is based on the same Tahiti video chip and has the same key characteristics.

The same applies to some other solutions of new series, although not all. For example, the Radeon R9 270x model is based on a new chip with Curacao code name, but what is his differences from Pitcairn and why it took the release of a new one, but almost the same chip is incomprehensible. RADEON R7 260X has a Bonaire chip, known by Radeon HD 7790, but the younger solutions R7 240 and R7 250 are based on a graphic processor OLAND that have not yet used in desktop graphics cards. However, it also has nothing particularly interesting, and the number of functional blocks in this budget GPU is even less than in Cape Verde. But let's consider the characteristics of the new line:

AMD RADEON R9 280X Video Card

Code name chip: "Tahiti"
Core frequency: up to 1000 MHz
Number of universal processors: 2048
Number of textural blocks: 128, blending blocks: 32
Effective memory frequency: 6000 MHz (4 × 1500 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory bus: 384 bits
Memory size: 3 gigabytes
Memory bandwidth: 288 gigabytes in sec.
Computational performance (FP32): 4,1 Teraflops
Theoretical Maximum Tormal Speed: 32.0 Gigapixels in Sec.
Theoretical Sampling Sample Textures: 128.0 Gigatexels in Sec.
Two Crossfire Connector
Tire PCI EXPRESS. 3.0
Power consumption: from 3 to 250 W
One 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors
Two-sheet design
Recommended price for the US Market: $ 299

This model is located in the new lineup of the company pitch below the top R9 290 (X), which has not yet been finalized. It is based on a successful Tahiti video chip, formerly tops quite recently, and is a complete analogue of the Radeon HD 7970 GHZ model, but is sold for $ 299 (in the US market). Among the advantages of the model, AMD calls the volume of video memory in 3 gigabytes, which will be in demand in high permissions, like 2560 × 1440 and Ultra HD, in such demanding games like Battlefield 4. Moreover, the volume of video memory in 3 GB is the official recommendation of the developers of this game .

As for the comparison of performance and prices with previous solutions, then, after the competitor, AMD loved comparisons with multi-year-old video cards. Of course, the novelty will look just fine, if you compare it with Radeon HD 5870, which came out ... as 4 years ago:

The video card on the diagram is compared in the modern 3DMARK test package, so it is not surprising that R9 280x more than doubled the top fee of many years ago. It is more important that such productivity is offered for the price of about $ 300, which is quite good, although some Radeon HD 7970 models are already sold in almost the same amount.

If you compare with the solutions of a competitor, then AMD declares an average superiority of 20-25% over gEFORCE video card GTX 760 competing NVIDIA, which has a similar price. It is probably somewhere that it is, we will check it in future practical materials, the first of which will appear at the end of the month.

AMD RADEON R9 270X Video Card

Code name chip: "Curacao"
Core frequency: up to 1050 MHz
Number of universal processors: 1280
Number of textural blocks: 80, blending blocks: 32
Efficient memory frequency: 5600 MHz (4 × 1400 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory bus: 256 bits
Memory: 2 or 4 gigabytes
Memory bandwidth: 179 gigabytes in sec.
Computational performance (FP32): 2.7 Teraflops
Theoretical Maximum Tormal Speed: 33.6 Gigapixels in Sec.
Theoretical Sampling Sample Textures: 84.0 Gigatexels in Sec.
One CROSSFIRE connector
Tire PCI Express 3.0
Connectors: Two DVI Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
Power consumption: from 3 to 180 W
Two 6-pin power connector
Two-sheet design
Recommended price for the US market: $ 199 (model with 4 GB of memory - $ 229)

The R9 270X model takes the position in the middle of the AMD Radeon line, it is based on a new Curacao video chip, which is almost twin Pitcairn. This video card almost repeats the Radeon HD 7870 known last ruler, but will be sold in the North American market for only $ 199, although it has differences from last year's board, and they are in the increased clock frequency of GPU and video memory, which should have positively affect performance. Moreover, the maximum frequencies themselves are now very meaning - in practice GPU can work at an even greater frequency, and the R9 270X speed will be closer to the Radeon HD 7950 than to HD 7870.

The model under consideration has a volume of video memory equal to two gigabytes, which is enough for permissions up to 1920 × 1080 (1200) even in modern demanding games at high settings. Traditionally, the productivity and price of new items are compared with previous solutions. This time, for comparison, a model of four-year-old Radeon HD 5850, which had even a slightly higher price at one time, was also taken:

It is not surprising that the Radeon R9 270x provides more than double gains of performance in modern benchmarks compared to one of the old models. Yes, and the second - Radeon HD 6870 - it is ahead of almost the same stock. As for comparison with nVIDIA video cardsThe AMD company compares the novelty with the GeForce GTX 660 model, believing that its option for $ 199 is 25-40% faster than a competitor in a specially selected set of modern games.

AMD RADEON R7 260X Video Card

Code name chip: "Bonaire"
Core frequency: up to 1100 MHz
Number of universal processors: 896
Number of textural blocks: 56, Blocks of blending: 16
Effective memory frequency: 6500 MHz (4 × 1625 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory bus: 128 bits
Memory amount: 2 gigabytes
Memory bandwidth: 104 gigabytes in sec.
Computational Performance (FP32): 2.0 Teraflops
Theoretical Maximum Tormal Speed: 17,6 Gigapixels in Sec.
Theoretical Sampling Sample Textures: 61.6 Gigatexels in Sec.
One CROSSFIRE connector
Tire PCI Express 3.0
Connectors: Two DVI Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
Power consumption: from 3 to 115 watts
One 6-pin power connector
Two-sheet design
Recommended price for the US Market: $ 139

The third model presented today has a smaller price of $ 139, it is an almost complete copy of the Radeon HD 7790 and is based on the same graphic processor with the Bonaire code name. Among the differences between the new model from the old one from the previous line - slightly increased frequency and the presence of two gigabytes of video memory. This is understandable: the requirements for the amount of memory are growing very quickly with time, and even more so it will be apparent when the multiplatform games designed for the following generation consoles.

Radeon R7 260X has sufficient performance for undemanding players, which is enough for high quality settings in most games. AMD compares the performance and price of the novelty, just one of the video cards of previous generations - Radeon HD 5870, again four years ago:

Apparently, the outdated top fee was taken to show that the performance of former representatives of the High-End segment is now available for only $ 139 (repeat, all prices are in the US market), and in the novelties even remains in power. From the competing solutions AMD mentions the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti model, and in the diagrams of this company, the new model R7 260X is 15-25% faster than the opponent.

AMD RADEON R7 250 Video Card

Code name chip: "Oland XT"
Core frequency: up to 1050 MHz
Number of universal processors: 384
Number of textural blocks: 24, blending blocks: 8
Efficient memory frequency: 4600 MHz (4 × 1150 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR5 or DDR3
Memory bus: 128 bits
Memory bandwidth: 74 gigabytes in sec.
Computational performance (FP32): 0.8 Teraflops
Theoretical Maximum Tormal Speed: 8.4 Gigapixels in Sec.
Theoretical Sample Sample Textures: 25.2 Gigatexels in Sec.
Tire PCI Express 3.0
Connectors: Dvi Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, VGA
Power consumption: from 3 to 65 W
Two-sheet design
Recommended price for the US Market: $ 89

Perhaps this is the first video card from the new AMD line, which has no clear precursor in the retail line, since the OLAND chip is used in desktop solutions for the first time (it was used in the OEM solutions of the Radeon HD 8000 family, not too well-known to the general public). This is the most accessible video card having a GPU GPU Architecture Graphics Core Next, intended for the entry-level price segment - it costs $ 90 cheaper!

The Radeon R7 250 video card will be released both in two-nozzles and in one-tetting - depending on the solution of manufacturers. Naturally, such a video plane does not need additional food - it is content with the energy obtained by PCI-E. Let's see what it can offer performance:

And again, AMD compares a fresh model with a solution from a distant Radeon HD 5000 family. Now the medium-level video card is now being taken - HD 5770, which at one time had a considerable success in the market. So, the current budget model provides the performance above the old, and this is almost half a smaller price! At current times, this is the most initial level for modern 3D games, and below it in terms of performance - only APU and ... more new video card R7 families.

AMD RADEON R7 240 Video Card

Code name chip: "Oland Pro"
Core frequency: up to 780 MHz
Number of universal processors: 320
Number of textural blocks: 20, blending blocks: 8
Effective memory frequency: 4600 MHz (4 × 1150 MHz) or 1800 MHz (2 × 900 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR5 or DDR3
Memory bus: 128 bits
Memory capacity: 1 (GDDR5) or 2 gigabytes (DDR3)
Memory bandwidth: 74 (GDDR5) or 23 (DDR3) gigabyte in sec.
Computational performance (FP32): 0.5 Teraflops
Theoretical Maximum Tormal Speed: 6.2 Gigapixels in Sec.
Theoretical Sampling Sample Textures: 15.6 Gigatexels in Sec.
Tire PCI Express 3.0
Power consumption: from 3 to 30 W
Single-cell design

In fact, this is an even more reduced version of the video card based on the OLAND video chip. It has a slightly trimmed GPU, working at smaller frequencies, and for sure most of these video cards on the market will have a slow DDR3 memory, which will impose a print on their performance in 3D. However, for such cheap boards, performance no longer matters. Moreover, in the future, it is possible to appear and even less expensive solutions of the R5 family, but this is a separate story.

It is not surprising that AMD's partners are ready to deliver new families with almost from the moment of the announcement, and even with its own design of boards, coolers and factory overclocking. Because for many of the new products they need to just flash a bit changed bIOS version, change the design of boxes and coolers - and new products are ready:

Actually, even practical tests in games on new video cards are not too interesting - you can simply take the results of those video cards of the past generation, with almost complete copies of which are models from new families, and throw 5-15% of the advantages obtained due to increased frequencies and twisted Power management technologies. After all, only R7 240 and R7 250 have explicit differences from the Radeon HD 7000 family boards, and the other cards (well, except R9 290 and 290X, which have not yet come out) are renamed old fees. And when there are no hardware changes, they usually talk a lot about new software technologies to which let's go.

Mantle - Low-level Graphic API

Perhaps the most unexpected announcement, together with the new lineup of the AMD Radeon video card, was the presentation of the new graphics API called Mantle. AMD, even despite the good relationship with the Microsoft DirectX development team and the support of the latest version of this API (DirectX 11.2) with its video chips, decided on such a serious step. Of course, they were advocated that in the next generation of game consoles, the AMD company will be the supplier of absolutely all GPU for all companies: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, and from this you can at least try to fuck some advantage.

It seems that AMD decided to release this API largely due to the influence of Dice and EA, the FrostBite gaming engine underlying the Battlefield game. To understand what Mantle is and why it is needed, it is necessary to bring the point of view of one of the leading game developers. At AMD event, Johan AndersSon's performance was shown - the technical director from the DICE, which is engaged in the Frostbite engine. He said that they consider PC an excellent game platform with rich capabilities, and moreover, for DICE, it was the PC that is the main platform, starting with Battlefield 1942, and they promise to support PC games and further.

AMD and DICE work together for a long time - it all started with Battlefield 2 in 2004. Cooperation of the two companies includes the collaboration of new technologies development departments, the introduction of technologies such as Eyefinity and Crossfire, and much more, such as a special show of the Battlefield 4 demonstration version on two Radeon HD 7990 video cards in 4K resolution at the GDC game Developer Conference.

FrostBite 3 - a new DICE engine, and at the same time it is a platform for many other EA games: shooters, strategies, RPG, races, etc. At the moment, more than 15 games of the Battlefield series, Need for Speed., Star Wars, Mass Effect, Command & Conquer, Dragon Age, Mirror's Edge, etc., so FROSTBITE Optimization for AMD GPU is a priority.

This engine is very modern, it uses a "native" 64-bit executable code with the possibility of launching 32-bit on old CPUs, the possibilities of eight CPU cores are activated, the engine is optimized for AMD Radeon video cards and DirectX 11.1 - in this version of the graphics API by Microsoft On request, DICE has added specific graphic capabilities. We present only some features of FrostBite on the example of Battlefield 4: level destructibility, imitation of the water surface for multiplayer, complex visual effects, Lighting with computing shaders, complex postfiltration: DOF with bokeh, Subsurface scattering, blur in motion, supercampling.

But when creating PC versions of multiplatform projects, there are always some difficulties. Although the FrostBite engine is perfectly scaled - from low-end to top systems, you need to maintain all hardware configurations, providing a wide range of graphic settings. Also on the PC it is impossible to use all CPU kernels in the graphics engine of the game due to the limitations of DirectX and OpenGL, and the extra costs of CPU resources in these APIs inhibit the development and slow down the code.

And some possibilities available on the PC are simply impossible to disclose due to the existing restrictions that appeared many years ago. Initially, the PC was so that the CPU "feeds" by the GPU data, and the close interaction between them when working on one tasks is very limited. At the same time, on the consoles have long been done so that part of the work (for example, postfiltration) is made on the CPU, and the part is on the GPU, and their access to memory is equally or almost equally fast.

Also, not all the hardware features of the released GPU can be used with existing graphics APIs. Some functionality, superior to the DirectX and OpenGL specification, remains unused developers. The slow development of the Graphic API is arranged not all, and some of the developers want to use all the hardware capabilities, not limited to the current software limits and using a more thin software shell between the GPU slot and hardware resources.

There are no consoles of all these problems, since they have a unified fixed software and hardware configuration, almost all the capabilities of which are available when developing games and applications. Also, operating systems and APIs on consoles are a significantly less thin layer between applications and hardware, which provides simplified development and low-level access to many additional features.

Taking into account the fact that all future game consoles "Desktop" format (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, first of all) are based on AMD graphic solutions that are based on the GCN architecture, familiar to PC, AMD and game developers have an interesting opportunity - to use This is in your own interests, releasing a special graphics API, which will programming the game engines on the PC in the same style as on the consoles, with the minimum effect of the API to the game engine code. The same Dice has long dreamed of a similar approach and talked to the manufacturers of GPU, and this opportunity appeared.

Mantle is a low-level high-performance graphic API in the "console style", but for a PC, which was developed in AMD with a significant participation of leading game developers, like DICE. It is not surprising: Dice is developing, and EA releases multiplatform games, in facilitating the development and improvement of the functionality of which they are interested. Battlefield 4 is the first project that will use Mantle, all other developers will have the ability to use this API in the future.

According to preliminary data, the use of Mantle provides a nine-time advantage over the possible number of calls for drawing functions (Draw Calls) compared to other graphics APIs, which reduces the load on the CPU. Of course, such a multiple advantage is possible only in artificial conditions, but some superiority will be ensured in typical 3D-games; The question is what. In any case, the Announcement of Mantle is a very loud event in the world of PC graphics, which can give an additional impetus to the development of new graphics algorithms and techniques, facilitates their transfer with consoles on the PC and back, and will strengthen the development of multiplatform gaming engines.

Although the game Battlefield 4 comes out in late October, the release version will support only DirectX 11.1, and the Mantle API support is scheduled for December, when a special free update is released, additionally optimized for AMD Radeon video cards. On PC systems with video cards of the GCN architecture, the FrostBite 3 engine will use the Mantle, which will reduce the load on the CPU, to parallery the work for eight computing kernels, which is impossible in the usual version, will make special low-level performance optimization and full access Hardware GCN capabilities. And this is only the beginning - in the future there are also other interesting ideas, like entire worlds, "living" on GPU, or low-level rendering on several GPUs that do not use Crossfire at all.

All questions about the practical differences of Mantle- and DirectX versions of the Battlefield 4 game and at least an approximate productivity increase that AMD is expected to respond with silence. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the work of Dice is not over and so far there is no approximate figures from them. Especially since Mantle still has more questions than answers. How will the low-level MANTLE driver work with its direct access to GPU resources in the Windows operating system with DirectX, which themselves manage the resources of the graphics processor? How will these resources be divided between the game application running Mantle and the Windows system?

Replies to these and other issues are expected not earlier than the middle of November 2013, when AMD Developer Summit will be held, on which the MANTLE implementation of the MANTLE implementation, the list of partners will also show the demonstration programs. We really hope to get all the information you are interested in, as well as learn about the developers who are interested in this API, as this is something new in 3D graphics on a PC. What theoretically can change the industry. Or maybe not change, if, for example, manufacturers of game engines and games will decide that they will immediately develop two directions (DirectX and Mantle) for them will be too consistent.

TrueAudio sound processing technology

Another unexpected and curious AMD announcement was the technology associated with ... Sound. In general, in AMD always paid a lot of attention. In 2006, they first released solutions capable of transmitting audio data on an HDMI cable directly from the video cards of the series ATI Radeon. HD 2000, in 2008 made sound support for DisplayPort at ATI Radeon HD 3600, in 2009 - Support for sound transmission with a high HDMI bit rate in the Radeon HD 5800 series, well, etc.

But it all was not connected with the actual sound processing. With the release of the Radeon R7 and R9 series, the company introduced the AMD TrueAudio technology to the world - a programmable audio service, which appeared in some of the video card models released in the new series. Yes, unfortunately, Trueaudio is supported only on AMD RADEON R7 260X and not announced public topical solutions of the R9 series. It is clear: only Bonaire and Hawaii chips are the most new ones in terms of technology, they have GCN 1.1 architecture and other innovations, including support for Trueaudio. And this is one of the most important restrictions.

What is Trueaudio? On PC, and in particular in games, support for the hardware processing of sound has long been predicted. At first, such grants like Aureal were absorbed, then the positions of even greater giant Creative were pretty stunned under the onscenaries embedded in system boards of audio codecs with primitive capabilities, and finally finished the hardware sound to Microsoft, disabling support hardware acceleration DirectSound and DirectSound3D in the Windows Vista operating system.

In contrast, specialized hardware blocks have always been involved in processing sound on gaming consoles. As a result, in recent times, PC is inferior to them by sound quality, and in the relevant versions of multiplatform games, we do not hear what the players are hearing on consoles. What is this explained? By the fact that the Universal CPU kernels are far from ideal for processing sound, and they are engaged in including many other tasks. The budget of the processor time, allocated in the sound games, is not so large (taking into account the universality of the CPU nuclei), and some effects during programming have to sacrifice.

As you can see, in this example, 10% of the computing resources of the available central processor are given to the sound processing. This does not always have enough. Therefore, in AMD, they decided to go "console" by melting a fully programmable audio in their own GPUs, the first of which became the Bonaire chip on which Radeon R7 260x was founded. TrueAudio technology gives developers the necessary flexibility and high performance when processing sound with various algorithms, here are their incomplete list: more mixed sounds, leveling of sound level, complex reverb, etc.

Trueaudio provides a guaranteed processing of real-time sound tasks on a system with a supported GPU, regardless of the CPU installed. To do this, there are several DSP cores of Tensilica HiFi EP Audio DSP to be integrated into the Hawaii and Bonaire chips, the capabilities of which can be read. However, the DSP-nuclei hardware TrueAudio is not limited, here is a detailed slide with the architecture of the hardware, which is part of some new GPUs:

The diagram shows several DSP-cores of Tensilica HiFi 2 EP, optimized for sound processing, data handlers in a floating-point format Tensilica Xtensa, as well as cache and built-in memory (32 KB cache for data and instructions and 8 KB of local "Scratch" - Memory to each DSP), multichannel DMA engine, built-in memory of 384 KB, interface access to system memory, up to 64 MB of addressable space in video memory, etc.

Access to TrueAudio features is carried out with the help of popular sound processing libraries used by game developers, and the technology fully changes the approach to video sounding. The developers of sound engines and effects can use built-in audio resources using a special AMD Trueaudio API.

Naturally, in the event of any new technologies, the issue of partnership with the developers of audio and audio libraries is very important. And AMD tries to engage tightly cooperate with many companies, known in their developments in this area. At the presentation of new products of the Radeon R7 and R9 families, several representatives of AMD partners on sound processing, told about the inclusion of Trueaudio's support in their future applications and games.

The list of partners is not bad, it includes both game developers (Eidos Interactive, Creative Assembly, Xaviant, AirTight Games), and audio-middleware developers (FMOD, Audiokinetic), and audio order developers (GENAUDIO, MCDSP), and this is just the beginning. The representative of Genaudio spoke about the Astoundsound technology, which allows you to position the sounds in the spherical space around the user not only horizontally, it is quite well coped even with a vertical direction.

Astoundsound technology is available in the form of plug-ins for common FMOD and WWISE sound engines, it is quite simple for integration into games. AMD TrueAudio support helps unload CPUs, raise the number of simultaneously processed sounds and is multiplatform, as in consoles there are also selected DSP for sound processing.

One of the most interesting features that gaming developers plan to use in their projects is CONVOLUTION REVERB - reverb based on a digital switch of the processed sound signal with a pulse characteristic (IR). Simply put, this reverberation uses "records" of real premises - as if the sound image of the room, expressed in mathematical form.

In the CONVOLUTION REVERB process, the reverb of a real physical space is simulated, based on the pre-recorded "Record" (Impulse Response) of this simulated space. The advantages of this approach compared to the presets of the reverberation, which we have seen, for example, in EAX, are that reverb based on a digital audio convolution provides realistic recreation of sound in rooms and on open spaces, without being limited in advance certain amount and the quality of presets.

But this algorithm is difficult to perform on the CPU programmatically, since it is very demanding for computing power (10-15% of the CPU resources can be easily requested), and also needs to be quite active with memory in the processing process. TrueAudio technology provides a reverb based on a digital tap of a sound signal, almost completely freeing the CPU from this difficult task. For games, this means that with the help of TrueAudio, it will be possible to use complex algorithms in greater quantities.

By the way, in the next year planned to the exit at the beginning of next year, the game of the Eidos company from the famous already many years of playing series, which is the simulator of the thief with a first-person view, it is planned to introduce AMD Trueaudio sound technology. It is not surprising, because it is in such games where the gameplay depends on the qualitatively socotized and imitated sound almost more than from the visual part, and a good sound is needed.

In general, Trueaudio technology is rather interesting, especially considering the explicit stagnation of hardware processing of sound on the PC and its active application on consoles. The question is, as always, in the relevance of the decision at the moment. Many game developers will throw out technology in their projects, taking into account the fact that at the moment it is available only on one video card (RADEON R7 260X)? Yes, over time, the R9 290 series boards will appear, and all the following AMD GPUs will contain a dedicated audio DSP, so Trueaudio can become realistic in demand. Whether it actually will actually - only time will answer this question. In any case, the innovations in the sphere of sound can only be welcomed, and then this swamp is stagnant.

Screen output technologies: Support Ultra HD and EyeFinity

AMD for a long time was one of the leaders among companies that are pioneers in the field of display information on the display devices: monitors, televisions, projectors ... For example, AMD was the first or one of the first among those who introduced support for DVI Dual Link for monitors with a resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels (October 2005), support for DisplayPort (January 2008), with three or more monitors - EyeFinity technology (September 2009), and then this support improved - in October 2011, portrait multimonitorial The mode is 5 × 1, etc. In December 2011, AMD introduced support for DisplayPort 1.2, and in February 2012 - HDMI with a resolution of 4K.

The 4K resolution, also known as Ultra HD, corresponds to the value of 3840 × 2160 pixels, that is, exactly four times more than Full HD (1920 × 1080), and it is very important for the industry. It is 4K that can give another serious impetus for the development of all companies related to images - after all, users also have come on something really new, and here they will have a fourfold improvement in the detail.

The problem is only in the small prevalence of Ultra HD monitors and TVs currently. 4k-televisions are sold only very large and expensive, and the corresponding monitors are extremely rare (the number of models can be counted on the fingers) and also superdudes. But the situation is about to change if the forecasts of analysts predicting Ultra HD devices are justified:

AMD provides a connection of two possible options for Ultra HD-displays: televisions with only 30 Hz support and below with a resolution of 3840 × 2160 and connected via HDMI or DisplayPort, as well as monitors, the image of which is divided into two halves by resolution of 1920 × 2160 at 60 Hz . The second type of monitors is also supported using MST-hubs DisplayPort 1.2, which recently went on sale.

In general, with the support of separated (tiled) 4K displays in reality, everything is not so simple. To support such a high resolution at 60 Hz, the use of two video streams is required, since one is not able to provide the required bandwidth. After all, if the image with HD resolution is required to be less than 100 meters per second, the Full HD resolution requires about 140 MP / s, and Ultra HD is more than 500 mp / s! Therefore, such displays are supported by the previous AMD Radeon HD 7000 lineup when using two video outputs or MST streams through special DisplayPort hubs.

To support separated monitors was implemented new standard VESA Display ID 1.3, which describes additional features Display, such as Tiled Device Identification, Description of the Tiley Topology and Positioning of each Tile, attaching a specific flow to a separate tile, as well as a description of the position and size of the framework. All this will make it easier to configure complex multimonitorial designs created using AMD Eyefinity technology, because with all these data, the setting will become much easier.

The new VESA standard will automatically "glue" an image for such monitors, if it is supported by both the monitor and the driver. This is planned in the future, but so far a manual configuration is required to such Tileymic 4K monitors. AMD suggests that in the latest versions of the Catalyst driver already have an automatic configuration for the most popular monitors models.

By the way, about the future Ultra HD monitors. The following models of AMD Radeon video cards will support the third type of Ultra HD-displays, which you need only one stream to work in ultra-high resolution at a renewal frequency of 60 Hz. The planned models of AMD video cards are ready to maintain high data rates up to 600 MHz, which are required for this, and we can only wait for new Radeon and monitors with appropriate support.

This section would not be completed in the absence of new information About AMD Eyefinity technology. It is well known that the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and earlier families are currently supported up to two HDMI / DVI-displays, and all other devices in the multimonitorial configuration must have a DisplayPort input or connect using active adapters from DisplayPort.

The AMD Radeon R9 series supports up to three HDMI / DVI displays when working with AMD Eyefinity technology. To work this feature, a set of three identical displays that support identical timings is required, the output setting is carried out at the start of the system, and the "hot" display is not supported for the third HDMI / DVI connection. At the same time, DisplayPort connectors can be involved, which will increase the number of monitors supported by one video card to six.

Software support: raptr and new Ruby

We have already mentioned that AMD continues to improve software support for its decisions. So, together with RAPTR, a specialized software was created, which is intended to facilitate the life of the game community. This software is designed to solve several tasks arising from the PC player at once. PC games are very good, they are always technically perfect and have enough opportunities to configure the user's requirements, but there are also its drawbacks. Not all players want to pick up in the settings for a long time, adjusting the games for themselves, some just want to press and play.

But there is no such possibility on the PC as a result of a multitude of software and hardware configurations, and services like Console Xbox LIVE, there is practically no. AMD's main competitor represented by NVIDIA Some time ago released software that facilitates at least setting up graphic parameters in games, which makes the setting and launching PC games close to what is available on the consoles - just press one button, and the application will be optimized for Specific system.

In the case of AMD, this application is called RAPTR, it is already possible, but it is not exhausted by the specified functionality. This utility collected many opportunities demanded by the game community, in one pile, and at the same time it is not limited to some individual publishers or platforms, but is unifying for all players. By the way, at the request of the company, the players in the RaptR community are already more than 18 million - this is a very impressive figure.

From other RAPTR features, you can select access to your favorite applications directly from the games, without having to switch between windows, the possibility of broadcast video broadcast gameplay For everyone, as well as various additions, typical of game communities: remuneration for the time spent in games; Free games and additions, beta and discounts on full versions Applications.

And yet the main thing for us is the ability to determine the optimal game settings for a specific gaming system from CPU and GPUs installed in PCs. This RAPTR functionality is easy to use. At startup, it defines hardware, finds installed games, as well as their settings, then builds FPS graphs during the game and search for optimal settings. In addition, RAPTR uses real frame frequency data in similar systems received from other users.

As in the appropriate NVIDIA, only pressing the mouse button is required to optimize, but, unlike GeForce Experience, there are three possible settings: Performance, Balanced and Quality. Another important difference from GFE is the use of data not from the test laboratory, but from all users ever launched the game when different settings - Raptr collects all this data and automatically finds optimal settings based on the mass of an analyzed material. However, it looks smoothly on paper, and how will it be in reality - we will see.

Well, finally, we will tell about pleasant. AMD has been creating and shows demonstration programs for 10 years, the main character of which is a girl named Ruby. In the last version, developed to the current Announcement by AMD, Illfonic and Crytek, she seriously changed the appearance - she was made a clear restyling.

This demonstration program uses CryenGine engine and is optimized for graphic processors of the Graphics Core Next architecture. The demo uses 17 technologies that have become possible thanks to the support of DirectX 11, including the already known physical simulation of TressFX hair, in which 12 thousand separate Ruby hairs are mimic. It seems that it is the need to show the possibilities of TressFX and explains the change in the appearance of the girl - because she previously wore a short haircut.

conclusions

Although the final conclusions of the AMD Radeon R7 and R9 family of video cards presented today, we will be done after practical testing, which is expected on our site closer to the end of October, yet let yourself express some considerations. Despite the fact that many of the announced models of the new line are simply renamed and slightly overclocked by the already known models of the Radeon HD 7000 family, the release of new products can be assessed as a whole positively, and that is why.

First, AMD offers very competitive prices for the entire line, ranging from R9 280x previously under the name of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, and ending with the R7 series budget cards based on the new Oland video chip. With such prices, almost all the models of AMD video cards from new families have a very good priceability ratio, performance and functionality.

Secondly, the most functionality is only expanding and improved. Together with the announcement of new solutions from the RADEON R7 and R9 families, we met with very interesting AMD initiatives: built into the GPU sound DSP engine in the form of TrueAudio technology and the new graphic MANTLE API, the development and announcement of which became possible in many ways due to the fact that AMD won the role of a supplier of graphic solutions for all the next generation gaming consoles.

Yes, so far the prospects for these most interesting initiatives in PC games are very foggy, and far from the fact that they will gain widespread in the environment of gaming developers, despite all their advantages and innovation. We will see with interest how AMD will promote your technologies, as it is a very difficult and time-consuming. After all, the creation of its own standards is much more difficult than the simple use of the recognized by the entire industry ...

Well, last: it seems that AMD has not yet said the most important word in the form of a production of top products known as RADEON R9 290 (X). It is these solutions based on the newest top graphics processor with the Hawaii code name, and should be the locomotive that will drag and all new technologies (Mantle and Trueaudio), and the entire modern product line - because the video cards of this level are always in many ways image Products that help sell the rest. So we are waiting for Hawaii.

For economical users, Sapphire has released a whole line of video cards of the Radeon R7 series, among which each consumer will be able to find a solution suitable for its requests. In the list of Radeon R7 graphics accelerators, you can detect the entry-level solutions, the video card for the simplest games and even relevant accelerators for modern games.

The editorial board selected and glad to present to your attention four different characteristics and execution of the SAPPHIRE RADEON R7 video card. The review participants entered:

video card SAPPHIRE R7 240 2GB DDR3 LOW PROFILE (11216-07-20G);
sAPPHIRE ULTIMATE R7 250 1GB GDDR5 video card (11215-04-40G);
video card SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 OC (11229-01-20G);
sAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265 2GB GDDR5 video card (11232-00-20g).

Technical characteristics of video cards

	R7 240 2GB DDR3 LOW PROFILE	Ultimate R7 250 1GB GDDR5	Vapor-X R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 OC	Dual-X R7 265 2GB GDDR5
Graphic processor	Oland.	Cape Verde.	Cape Verde.	Pitcaim
TechProcess	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm
Frequency GPU.	730 (Boost 780) MHz	800 MHz	1100 MHz	900 (Boost 925) MHz
Number of shader processors	320	512	640	1024
Video memory	2 GB	1 GB	1 GB	2 GB
Type of video memory	GDDR3	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Tire Blossomy Video Motion	128 bits	128 bits	128 bits	256 bits
Frequency of video memory	1800 MHz	4500 MHz	5200 MHz	5600 MHz
Support Crossfire	there is	not	there is	there is
API support		DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.2	DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.2	DirectX 11.2, Mantle, OpenGL 4.3
Ports	HDMI, HDMI	HDMI, DVI-I, DP	HDMI, DVI-D, DVI-I, DP	HDMI, DVI-D, DVI-I, DP
Max. Number of connected monitors	2	3	3	3
Additional power connector	-	-	6-PIN.	6-PIN.
Length	169 mm	185 mm	225 mm	228 mm
Price	~ 2300 rubles	~ 4000 rubles	~ 4300 rubles	~ 5900 rubles

All video cards are based on the fresh 28 Nm technical process and have support for such modern technologies As DirectX 11.2. Basic distinctive features Between these graphics accelerators are the number of shader processes, the volume and type of memory, as well as their working clock frequencies.

R7 240 2GB DDR3 LOW PROFILE (11216-07-20G)

The first representative of the Radeon R7 Sapphire family, which we consider in this review, will be R7 240 2GB. This video card is the weakest of the presented in this review, and its main purpose is office and home-level home computers. Despite the use of the memory of the GDDR3 standard, its volume is 2 GB, and the clock frequency is 1800 MHz. The frequency of the graphic chip from this 780 MHz video card, the OLAND kernel contains 320 shader processors.

Packaging and equipment

The video card is packed in a small cardboard box with a predominance of red and black colors in the design. On the front of the package, the manufacturer and the video card model is indicated, and on the reverse - the main technical features.

The R7 240 2GB DDR3 package includes the following components:

video Card R7 240 2GB DDR3;
hDMI adapter\u003e DVI;
back plank;
documentation;
CD with drivers;
sapphire sticker.

An interesting feature of this video card is the ability to install in compact buildings ultra-slim design. For this video card has already been collected in the Low Profile execution. However, the presence of a standard back plank in the kit will allow you to set this video card into conventional housings.

The video card design is the simplicity and minimalism of the design, both the printed circuit board and the cooling system.

The image output connectors have only two video cards, and it is both HDMI connections. Therefore, to use this graphics accelerator with monitors equipped with an analog signal input simply will not work.

Black circuit board circuit board. Of the interesting features of the back side of the PCB is the presence of four memory chips.

The graphic chip of the video cards is rotated on -135 degrees relative to the printed circuit board. There are four protective pads around it to avoid the cooling system skew during installation.

The Oland Graphic Processor, produced in October 2013, has a removable protective frame of green. The frequency of the graphic chip is 780 MHz.

R7 240 uses the memory of Nanya standard GDDR3. Eight RAM microscopes operate with a clock frequency of 1800 MHz.

The video card power system is made according to the circuit 2 + 1, where two phases are responsible for graphic processor And one for memory.

Aluminum radiator installed on the graphic chip simplest designwhich in turn is cooled by 50mm APISTEK fan.

Ultimate R7 250 1GB GDDR5 (11215-04-40G)

The following representative of the Radeon R7 line is based on the Cape Verde graphic core, which contains 512 streaming processors. There is already a memory of the GDDR5 standard of 1 GB with a frequency of 4500 MHz.

Packaging and equipment

On the front side of the box contains basic information about the technical features of the video card.

The back of the box contains information about the main advantage of the video card - namely about working at the absolute absence of noise. This is achieved by using a non-ventilated cooling system.

The installation of Ultimate R7 250 1GB includes the following components:

ultimate R7 250 1GB video card;
dVI\u003e VGA adapter;
hDMI cable;
documentation;
CD with drivers;
sapphire sticker.

Appearance and cooling system

The main reason for the enhanced interest in this video card is its cooling system. Thanks to a non-flammable design that allows this graphical accelerator to work silently, this video card will be a find for people who want to collect the most silent computer.

The radiator of the cooling system is massive so much that its individual parts protrude not only on the other side of the printed circuit board, but also go to the limits of the PCB itself in length.

Ultimate R7 250 1GB has the following connectors: DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.

Printed circuit board at Ultimate R7 250 1GB compact sizes. The highest heated elements of the system of nutrition and microcircuits are equipped with aluminum radiators.

The Cape Verde's graphics processor produced in 39 weeks of 2013 is satisfied with the standards of 28 nm technical process.

In the production of Ultimate R7 250 1GB used rAM SK HYNIX GDDR5 standard with H5GQ2H24AFR marking.

The power system has 3 phases, broken into groups 2 + 1. One phase is responsible for the meal of memory and two for the graphics processor.

The cooling system Ultimate R7 250 1GB is a design of a radiator with heat tubes.

The base of the radiator is made of copper. Heat from the base of the radiator on the radiator plates, four thermal tubes are removed.

The design of the radiator is made in a g-shaped form in order for a portion of the radiator to be displayed on the opposite direction of the video card.

With a good airflow organization in the case system Block Such a design should be enough to ensure high-quality cooling of the R7 250 1GB video card.

Vapor-X R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 OC (11229-01-20G)

The third video card queue is also based on the Cape Verde kernel, but the previous video card has a large number of streaming processors. In the Vapor-X R7 250x 1GB GDDR5 of their 640. The video card is equipped with 1 GB of memory operating at a frequency of 5200 MHz.

Packaging and equipment

The video card comes in a small cardboard box, decorated in turquoise-black colors. On the front of the packaging, the model and the main technical characteristics of the video card are indicated, and on the back side, the VAPOR-X of this graphics accelerator is described on the back.

The set of Vapor-X R7 250x 1GB GDDR5 includes the following components:

vapor-X R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 video card;
dVI\u003e VGA adapter;
molex\u003e 6pin power adapter;
documentation;
CD with drivers;
sapphire sticker.

Appearance and cooling system

By the design of the cooling system, this video card can already be judged by the graphical accelerator as a game. The VAPOR-X branded cooling system hints at this fact immediately after removing the video card from the box. The massive radiator and two large fans are exactly what characterizes the Cooling system VAPOR-X on the VAPOR-X R7 250X 1GB video card.

To display the image in the VAPOR-X R7 250X 1GB, the following connectors are implemented: pair DVI, one HDMI port and one DisplayPort.

In the production of VAPOR-X R7 250X 1GB, a blue textolite is used.

With the removed cooling system, it becomes naked eye and other features that hinting the video card to the game - this is the CrossFire connector and an additional power socket.

The heart of the video card is the Cape Verde graphics processor, produced at the 41st week of 2013.

RAM in 1 GB is typed four SK HYNIX chips with H5GQ2H24AFR marking.

The video card system is implemented according to the 3 + 1 scheme, where the three phases are responsible for the GPU, and one for memory.

The Cooling System Vapor-X R7 250X 1GB Video Card is an evaporative chamber, a heat from which the cooling system is allocated to the radiator with two thermal tubes.

A plastic casing with two fans is installed on top of the radiator part of the structure.

FIRSTD fans used, operate at a voltage of 12 V and current of 0.32 A.

Dual-X R7 265 2GB GDDR5 (11232-00-20G)

The most powerful and most expensive video card among today's review participants is Dual-X R7 265 2GB GDDR5. This video card is built on the basis of the already familiar chip of AMD Pitcaim. The video card has a 256-bit memory bus. The amount of memory graphics accelerator is 2 GB, and its frequency is 5600 MHz.

Packaging and equipment

Dual-x R7 265 2GB is nothing else as AMD Radeon HD7850 reincarnation. On the front side of the video card packaging there is a model name and the main technical features of the graphics accelerator.

On the back of the box, the focus is on the cooling system of the video card and technologies that are equipped with this map.

The DUAL-X R7 265 2GB package includes the following components:

dUAL-X R7 265 2GB video card;
molex adapter\u003e 6 * PIN;
dVI\u003e VGA adapter;
documentation;
CD with drivers;
sapphire sticker.

Appearance and cooling system

The video card design is made in harmonious style, the main color used color of the cooling system and the printed circuit board in Dual-X R7 265 2GB is black.

The video card takes two expansion slots. From the video output connectors there are pair of DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.

There are no memory chips on the back of the memory circuit board, all chips fitted with the front side of the video card.

The video card circuit board contains a significant amount of hinged elements that are located very dense throughout PCB area. Eight memory chips are located around the graphics processor on the M-shaped form.

Graphic aMD processor Pitcaim, manufactured at the 11th week of 2013, has 1024 streaming processors. In order to avoid damage to the graphics core, a metal protective frame is provided on the processor.

The amount of memory in 2 GB is diagnosed with SK HYNIX memory chips.

The video card is organized according to Scheme 4 + 1, where four phases are responsible for the graphics processor and one phase for memory.

For additional power, the video card provides one 6pin connector.

And also there is an opportunity to combine the video card in CrossFire bond. To do this, there is a corresponding connector on the board.

The cooling system in the DUAL-X R7 265 2GB video card consists of a massive radiator with two thermal tubes.

To cool the memory, thermal layers are used, which transmit heat from memory chips to the cooling system radiator.

From above, the radiator part covers a plastic casing with two fans of Firstd.

Test Stand Configuration

CPU	Intel Core I7-4770K 3,5GHZ LGA1150 (Hyperthreading On, TurboBoost ON)
Motherboard

Solid State Drive
Power Supply	THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER XT 775W
HDD	SATA-3 1TB Seagate 7200 Barracuda (ST1000DM003)
	ASUS PB298Q, 29 "(2560x1080)

Thermal interface	Gelid GC-Extreme
Operating system	Windows 7 x64 SP1
Other in	CPU-Z ROG 1.69.2, GPU-Z 0.7.8, MSI Afterburner 3.0.0 Beta 19, MSI Kombustor 2.5.1, Sapphire TRIXX 4.8.2, Driver Catalyst 14.4

In order to test video cards in practice, we collected a test system with an Intel Core i7-4770K processor and motherboard ASUS Z87-PLUS.

Heating Testing, Acceleration and Energy Consumption

During testing, the ambient temperature indoors amounted to 26 degrees Celsius. Without a load, almost all video cards demonstrated the temperature of the graphic chip in the area of \u200b\u200b40 degrees Celsius. Only SAPPHIRE Ultimate R7 250 with its passive cooling system remains a mansion.

In a state of load, the coldest video card remained Sapphire R7 240, while Sapphire Ultimate R7 250 again occupied the title of the hottest video card of this test. It is worth noting that the SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R7 250X and SAPPHIRE Dual-X R7 265 video cards due to its effective cooling systems have shown quite decent results.

The acceleration technique of video cards is simple - the maximum stable frequencies of the graphics processor and memory in a step of 10 MHz, during which the video card continued to work stably. The results of the acceleration turned out the following:

sapphire R7 240 video card - the graphics processor managed to overclock up to 1050 MHz, memory up to 2500 MHz;
sapphire Ultimate R7 250 video card - the graphics processor managed to overclock up to 925 MHz, memory up to 4900 MHz;
sAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R7 250X video card - the graphics processor managed to overclock up to 1210 MHz, memory up to 6100 MHz;
sAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265 video card - the graphics processor managed to dispersed to 1170 MHz, memory up to 6200 MHz.

The next step testing was the measurement of the power consumption of the entire system as a whole, without taking into account the monitor. Without load, all video cards have an approximately the same effect on the power consumption of the system. It is allocated only to a little more than the most eldest SAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265 from the video cards under consideration.

When the video card, the energy consumption of the system increases significantly only in the case of Sapphire Dual-x R7 265, where it approaches 200 W. The remaining video cards do not have such a significant impact on the power consumption of the system.

The simultaneous load of the video card and processor allows the first three video cards to pull into a psychological mark of 200 W. The Sapphire Dual-X R7 265 video card with ease goes beyond the boundary of this turn and approaches 250 W.

The acceleration of the video card with simultaneous load on it and the processor further increases the power consumption of the system. The first Trinity remains at a 200 W mark, only Sapphire Vapor-X R7 250X comes a little bit of this frame. As for Sapphire Dual-X R7 265, this video card with the use of acceleration is already approaching 300 W.

Summarizing the issue of energy consumption, it is worth saying that the first triple video cards will be a fairly high-quality power supply of a total capacity of up to 300W. In the case of using SAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265, the power of the power supply is already desirable about 400 W.

Testing in benchmarks and games

The list of synthetic tests was:

3D Mark 11;
3D Mark 13;
Valley Benchmark;
Ungine Heaven Benchmark.

The following games included gaming tests:

Sniper ELITE V2;
Hitman Absolution;
Metro Last Light;
Thief;
TOMB RAIDER;
Battlefield 4;
Batman.archam City.

In all games, the maximum possible graphics settings available through the game menu were used. All game tests, with the exception of Battlefield 4, were carried out using built-in productivity benchmarks. In the popular BallTefield 4 shooter 4, the performance estimate was carried out in Multiplayer mode on the map "Road of Hamud" with 64 players. In Balltefield 4, for the counting of frames per second, we used the FRAPS program. Given the modest positioning of video cards in terms of performance, it was decided in all games to use the resolution of 1680x1050 pixels. The graphs present the average number of frames per second.

Analyzing the performance of all video cards, it is worth recognizing that for modern games at the highest possible settings when resolving 1680x1050 pixels, only Sapphire Dual-X R7 265 will be sufficiently enough. The remaining video cards are simply unable to provide an acceptable level of performance in tested games and these graphics settings.

Output

Video card SAPPHIRE R7 240 2GB DDR3 LOW PROFILE (11216-07-20G).

This video card is the most inexpensive and simplest among the tested. Its main purpose is to perform the primary role of the video card - as a source of video output. For games, this solution is completely not suitable, the performance of the video card is not far from the integrated solutions. A positive feature of Sapphire R7 240 is the possibility of its installation in ultra-thin enclosures with extension boards in Low Profile execution.

SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE R7 250 1GB GDDR5 video card (11215-04-40G).

The main feature of the ultimative video card from Sapphire is the absolute silence of Ultimate R7 250 when working. This graphics accelerator is suitable for whom the overall noise level of the entire system is more important than performance. But on this advantage of this video card ends - modern games Ultimate R7 250 cannot oppose anything. The lot of this video card office and multimedia PCs, not aimed at modern games.

Video card SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 OC (11229-01-20g).

SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R7 250X It is the video card from the entire four, which can be said that this is the minimum for economical gamer. Graphics card performance is not enough for modern games when maximum settings Graphics. But setting the minimum settings and reducing the resolution - to play on the verge of comfort quite real. The main consumers of this graphics accelerator will be those who, what is called "buy a video card for surrender."

SAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265 2GB GDDR5 video card (11232-00-20g).

SAPPHIRE DUAL-X R7 265 - The only of the four tested video cards that suggests the ability to play all modern games, and sometimes even with good graphics settings. Being, in fact, the reincarnation of the Radeon HD7850, this video card has still has a solid capacity, which is enough for today. Under the power of the power of this video card and power consumption, for the SAPPHIRE Dual-X R7 265 system, you will need a 400 W power supply.

It cannot be said that AMD produces weak video cards, especially in an inexpensive segment. The performance of video cards often grabs most of the tasks. Especially if it is not high demanding tasks, like a render of video or working with 3D graphics. In order to better determine the level of performance, two AMD RADEON R7 200 Series series video cards should be viewed.

The table describes aMD features RADEON R7 200 Series, namely, a comparative analysis of two video cards from this series is presented.

Video Card Parameters	Radeon R7 240.
	Oland Xt.
Frequency of nucleus	780 MHz
Graphic memory type	DDR3
Number of memory	2 GB
Memory frequency	1600 MHz
TechProcess	28
Streaming processes	320
Rendering blocks	8
	20
	128 bits
Transistors	1040 million	1040 million
Heat sink	30 W.
Support	DirectX 12.

It should be borne in mind that the base frequency of the R7 240 kernel is 730 MHz, and 780 MHz is the frequency after overclocking. The video card parameters specified the DDR3 memory type, but there is another option with GDDR5 memory. In comparison, DDR3 will be used, since at the moment it is the most common type.

Review Radeon R7 200 Series

AMD RADEON R7 200 Series refer to the category of budget and affordable video cards. However, it is fully fulfilled. The video cards considered in this review are presented from Gigabyte.

RADEON R7 240 Review

The model received 2 GB of video memory type DDR3. It also has initial factory overclocking. The assembly itself is performed qualitatively, even though it is the budget segment.

On the top of the graphics card there is a cooling cooler with a large radiator. Such a solution is caused by the strong heating of AMD cards. The radiator is made of aluminum, and the fan itself bulges slightly. The length of the entire video card is 19.5 cm.

In the Metro Last Light game, the results are not bad. The kernels worked at a frequency of 900 MHz. The video card was loaded by 90-100%, while the average temperature did not exceed 46 degrees. The coolers worked by 33%, and the frequency of revolutions per minute reached 2 thousand. The cooler almost did not make noise.

RADEON R7 250 Overview

External registration of a graphic card is no different from the younger model. It also has an electrically insulating coating of a blue textolite and a width of 19.5 cm. The radiator is as cumbersome as that of AMD RADEON R7 240.

Caps considered exclusively memory chips and power phases. Radeon R7 250 has three-phase food, unlike two-phase R7 240.

Test results in the Metro Last Night game are similar. The video card worked stably for 90-100%, while it was not particularly heated. The temperature did not exceed 46-47 ° C.

The difference only in the number of revolutions per minute. The fan worked at a rate of 1200 rpm, which is two less than the speed of Radeon R7 240. The FPS indicator has consistently held around 30-40 frames.

How to overclock Radeon R7 200 Series video card

To begin with, you will need to install the following utilities: MSI Afterburner, 3DMark, TechpowerUp GPU-Z, FURMARK.

Run MSI Afterburner and click on the setup button (gear).
Select the "User Interface" tab and set the desired language in the settings.
Click on the "Settings" coppe and in the "Monitoring" tab the following parameters: The frequency of the nucleus GP, the frequency of the GP1 memory, the frame rate, the temperature of GP1.
For each of the selected parameters, set the option "Show in an overlay display" and save changes.
Without clicking on the "Settings" button again and in the "Main" tab, we put ticks to "unlock the voltage control" and to "unlock voltage monitoring".
Run the program FURMARK and choose suitable permission Screen, as well as the most accessible smoothing.

Now the most important stage is the acceleration of AMD Radeon R7 200 Series acceleration. We start with overclocking video memory. First, increase the memory frequency by 100 MHz and save the setting. After that, we run a video card in Furmark. We repeat this procedure before the first artifacts appear.

If when testing the computer hangs, it is worth it to restart it immediately. After rebooting, set the parameters in which the artifacts are absent.

Finally, check the map in the program 3DMark, in order to avoid glare, spots and other defects.

With acceleration of the video nucleus the situation is the same. Set the parameter "Power Limit" to the maximum, after which we increase the core frequency by 10 MHz. Tests are carried out in programs that used to overclock the memory.

If artifacts appear, then increase the voltage on the kernel. We repeat the procedure until the desired result is reached.

Test results in games

In GTA V, both video cards show a good result. With low graphics settings, both video cards were issued in the region of 35-40 FPS. At the initial frequencies of R7 240 DDR3, I wins a bit and gives 10-15 FPS more. Such indicators are achieved not only due to high performance video cards, but also because of the good level of optimization of GTA V.

In the War Thunder game, with basic frequencies, the video cards are given a stable 35 FPS. And Radeon R7 240 is ahead of GT 730 at 13 FPS. The situation after overclocking is even better. Both AMD video cards not only go to the GEFORCE GT 730 DDR3 and GeForce GT 730 type GDDR5, but also ahead of them a few percent. It is worth noting that the graphics settings were set on average.

Well, the latest game - Dota 2. Both MAPs from AMD are steadily operating in the area of \u200b\u200b45 FPS. In highly loaded scenes, the number of frames knew up to 25-30 FPS. With basic frequencies, Radeon R7 240 overtook the GeForce GT 730 by 25 FPS.

Situation with R7 250 is a little worse. No acceleration of the frequency of video memory strongly affects productivity growth. Therefore, the FPS indicator in Radeon R7 250 is slightly lower than the GeForce GT 730 (GDDR5) indicator. Tests were carried out at the minimum graphics settings.

In general, the tests in the AMD Radeon R7 200 Series games show satisfactory results. Video cards are able to pull quite modern games, albeit on low settings. A comparative analysis showed that in most cases AMD video cards ahead of NVIDIA video cards. But it must be borne in mind that video cards are in the budget segment.